Kissinger, Angola and US-African Foreign Policy

The Unintentional Realist

Steven O'Sullivan

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781138496002
• eBook ISBN: 9781351022767
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Política y relaciones internacionales
• Subtopic: Política

Analysing US foreign policy towards Angola during the Ford administration, this book provides an intriguing insight into one of the most avoidable and unfortunate episodes in Cold War history and explores the impact on Henry Kissinger's much vaunted reputation for being guided by realist principles.

Kissinger has dominated political discourse and scholarship on US foreign policy since the 1970s, but although his legacy continues to generate controversy, little attention has been paid to the influence of Vietnam's collapse on the US decision to covertly intervene in the Angolan civil war. This book argues that Kissinger's concern for personal reputation and US credibility following the collapse of Vietnam led to a harmful and unrealistic policy toward Angola. Exposure of US covert intervention exacerbated domestic and international political tensions and the subsequent showdown between the excutive and legislative branches ironically resulted in Kissinger proclaiming a new departure in US–African relations. Thus, it is argued that Kissinger was an 'unintentional realist' rather than an intellectual proponent of realpolitik.

Enhancing our understanding of Kissinger, his relationship with his subordinates and with Congress, and his approach to foreign policy, this book will be of interest to scholars of Cold War history, US foreign policy and all those fascinated by the personality of Henry Kissinger.

1 No cause for concern

US foreign policy and Angola 1969–1974

Introduction

The Carnation Revolution in Portugal in April 1974 and the subsequent rapid decolonization of its African territories helped change how the landscape of sub-Saharan Africa was viewed in Cold War competition. In the context of Angola, the civil war of 1975–1976 highlighted a particular weakness in US foreign policy towards Africa in the 1960s and early 1970s. Indeed, US ignorance of sub-Saharan Africa ensured a delayed response to the Angolan consequences of the Carnation Revolution. In this setting, the foundation of the Ford administration’s defeat at the hands of Congress in late 1975 and early 1976 can be found in the first term of the Nixon administration. In particular, the US attitude towards the region can be seen in NSSM 39 which examined and recommended courses of action for US foreign policy toward southern Africa. The tenuous relationship between the African Bureau of the US State Department and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger is worthy of further investigation. During the Angolan crisis and in his subsequent memoirs, Kissinger has vehemently argued that the African Bureau was filled by officers who held a “siege mentality in which they transmuted their isolation into a claim to moral superiority, casting themselves as the defenders of American idealism”.¹ Yet the African Bureau did not initially offer any substantial dissent on the direction of US–African policy. In the aftermath of the Carnation Revolution, the Bureau concluded that the policy of NSSM 39 had actually served the US well. The chapter also illustrates Kissinger’s contempt for those who would potentially undermine his authority and prestige. In particular his Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Donald Easum who undertook an African trip in late 1974 in order to gain perspective on how US policy was being perceived by African states and initiating a foundation for discussion with potential future leaders of Angola and Mozambique.

By the autumn of 1974, the African Bureau and Kissinger were in relative agreement on US policy toward southern Africa. However, despite a tentative ceasefire being agreed between the Angolan liberation movements, there were signs that Angola could develop into a potential Cold War conflict as external powers jostled for influence within the Angolan liberation leaders. Yet, these signs were ignored by Kissinger in favour of ousting Easum for his attempt to pre-empt future US policy toward the region. His decision to replace Easum with Nathaniel Davis, who had no experience in African affairs, was a signal of how Kissinger intended to further marginalize the African Bureau in 1975. Indeed, Davis was seen as an officer who would not undermine his view of Africa and its relative status as a backwater in US Cold War strategy. Nevertheless, despite Kissinger’s intentions, the sudden collapse of Vietnam created the conditions that would ensure that the African Bureau and its new Assistant Secretary would challenge Kissinger over US–Angolan policy as the country descended into civil war.

The foundation of failure?: NSSM 39 and the African Bureau

One of the more striking observations on the plight of Angola in US foreign policy was actually highlighted during the early 1960s in the John F. Kennedy administration. In July 1961, Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs G. Mennen Williams commented that Angola was a test of US commitment to freedom and the US should not be slow to advocate change in the region. In William’s view, this risked seeing “Soviet Communism come on the scene as the spurious champion of ‘freedom’ for Portuguese Africa”.² It would serve to be a familiar reminder of the balancing problem that the US faced in its policy towards Portugal throughout the 1960s, and one that was never fully addressed in either the Kennedy administration or in the subsequent Lyndon Johnson administration.

With the inauguration of the Nixon administration in 1969 there was little optimism that African issues would be given any priority given the American preoccupation with ending the Vietnam War. In the context of Angola, the most important policy consideration was NSSM 39. On 10 April 1969, Kissinger ordered a review of US–southern Africa policy and an Inter-Departmental Group (IG) was charged with creating a response to NSSM 39. It outlined five options to be considered in order to progress US policy in the region. The preferred choice was presented in Option Two, which advocated a “partial relaxation of American measures against these [white] regimes, together with increased aid for black Africa”, yet this course if adopted meant that the US “would be unable to abandon it if it did not work. Hence, the label given [to] this option by its State opponents: ‘tar baby’ ”.³ The logic behind such action was based on the premise that “such an American stance could do more – at least in theory – to promote peaceful change within southern Africa than hostile actions which lacked real force and simply made the whites of southern Africa more obdurate”.⁴ Such analysis failed to adequately address the long-term future of the region, and instead marginalized it into a short-term fix which mainly attempted to placate American business prospects in the region, and especially in South Africa while simultaneously endorsing the status quo. Critics of the Tar Baby option have claimed

NSSM 39 never confronts the question of how “progress towards majority rule” is actually transformed into majority rule. In fact, the document’s silence on that issue amounts to an admission that Whites will never peacefully surrender more than a qualified franchise.⁵

In subsequent years one of the chief proponents of the NSC’s views on NSSM 39, Roger Morris reflected “it was a disaster, naïve in concept, practically impossible for the government to execute, and thus a ready cover for pursuing the most reactionary and short-sighted U.S. interests in the region”.⁶ In addition, historian Zaki Laïdi argues that the policy marked the end of the State Department’s “influence over the determination of America’s African policy”.⁷ However, the degree to which the African Bureau had any influence over foreign policy during the administration is contentious. Furthermore, such a statement does not fully cover the multiple facets of US–African policy during this period and there was no rebellion within the African Bureau over the decision to implement Option Two.

In fact, there was relative alignment between them on Portuguese-African policy objectives. In April 1970 only a few months after Nixon had approved Option Two, both the African and European Bureaus of the State Department advocated that the US should not establish military liaison offices in either Angola or Mozambique as Portugal would conclude the US shared “their estimate of the territories strategic importance to the West [… when] in fact, U.S. interests in Angola and Mozambique are relatively small and are likely to remain so”.⁸ Indeed this “hands-off” approach was repeated in May 1970 when US Secretary of State William Rogers confidently told Portuguese Prime Minister Marcelo Caetano that the US

hoped to have a fairly practical policy in that we were going to assist African nations in economic development and otherwise. We were not as concerned about the extent of communist penetration as some other nations seemed to be, since the danger compared to prior periods seemed to have lessened.⁹

However, by the autumn of 1970, contrary to what Rogers had confidently stated only a few months prior to Caetano, there were early signs that US strategy was actually inviting the Soviets into the region. A report prepared by the INR noted how the Soviets were providing increased aid to the liberation movements in the region to gain influence with the groups. It also warned that the Soviets were trying to sway leaders of independent African states who supported the groups. It highlighted that “the Soviets appear to have become somewhat more bullish in Africa [and] an increased investment at this time would be consistent with what the Soviets seem to have assessed to be an improved climate in Africa”.¹⁰

Furthermore, Angola stood out as a particularly problematic area for the US to navigate. In September 1970 a report entitled “Angola: Guidelines for Policy”, once again highlighted the fundamental problem of attempting to strike a balance between the whites and the blacks in Angola. In this context, the report criticized US strategy towards Portuguese Africa and highlighted Angola as a case study where it was failing to appease Portugal and the other independent African governments. Instead it called for “an internationally acceptable solution to the Angolan problem would thus serve our interests by removing an impediment to the realization of more vital US foreign aims, whether in Africa, in Europe, or in other areas of the world”.¹¹ Yet while this report was critical of the path that NSSM 39 had taken US policy on, it was not calling for a comprehensive African solution which Kissinger would later ridicule the African Bureau for. Rather it shared a similar theme to earlier calls from the European Affairs Bureau for an Angolan solution, not for the good of the blacks in Angola – but in order to improve relations with Portugal and indeed free the US to concentrate on other world issues which aligned more closely with US national interests.

However, there were some signs of increased dissent on the Tar Baby policy in 1971 when African Bureau officials began to come to the conclusion that the Portuguese would not be able to sustain the current African situation in the long term. In fact, the African Bureau were tentatively advocating a move to establish contact with the potential future black leaders in Angola. This is illustrated by an internal memorandum which stated that it was possible that many more African states would gain independence within the decade and recommended the US consider its “current relations with liberation movements [… and how it] will affect our future relations with them as potential independent governments [… but] to a degree this is a crystal ball exercise because the future is obviously unpredictable.¹²

Despite these timid warnings, the conversation appeared to be happening in a vacuum as there was no shift in US–African policy over the next two years. In the intervening period, National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger was appointed as Secretary of State. Furthermore, the breakout of the Yom Kippur War in October 1973 between Israel and the Arab nations only served to copperfasten Kissinger’s view that the US needed to keep Portugal content in order to secure the landing facilities in the Azores.¹³ Kissinger sought to reward the Portuguese for their assistance during the war and began to actively engage in discussions to soften the US arms embargo toward Portugal, especially in relation to US weapons being used by Portugal in their African territories. It was clear that Kissinger prioritized Portuguese relations as they acquiesced to Portuguese pressure to breach the arms embargo, rather than provide money to buy arms on the world market....

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1 No cause for concern: US foreign policy and Angola 1969–1974
• 2 The Davis Nomination and the crisis of credibility in US foreign policy
• 3 The fallout: Kissinger, Davis and the State Department
• 4 The approval of Operation IAFEATURE
• 5 An autumn of discontent: the collapse of IAFEATURE
• 6 Humpty Dumpty politics: Kissinger, Congress and the Vietnam legacy
• 7 A fractured consensus: the Ford administration confronts Congress
• 8 A new beginning?: Kissinger and US–African policy
• Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Index